Amid rising concerns over a potential brain drain in the federal IT and cyber forces, agencies and employees may take heart in knowing they can soon take advantage of a program that will allow outgoing retirees to work part time to help mentor and train their replacements.

The Office of Personnel Management on Wednesday released proposed regulations to allow federal employees to take a “phased retirement,” enabling would-be retirees to work a part-time schedule while beginning to draw prorated retirement benefits. This will allow agencies to better capture the knowledge of these seasoned workers and foster mentoring relationships.

The program is entirely voluntary, and no employee should feel entitled to a phased retirement, OPM said. Participation requires the consent of both the employee and the agency, and employees must meet several age, service and retirement requirements, according to the notice.

This change to federal retirement laws has been years in the making. Under prior law, federal employees had little economic incentive to move into part-time work because their potential retirement benefits would often be equal to or greater than their part-time salary.

A phased retiree “would receive more income than he or she would earn by simply changing to a part-time work schedule or by simply retiring, while continuing to share knowledge and expertise with the next generation of federal leaders via mentoring and role-modeling,” OPM stated in the Federal Register.

Brittany Ballenstedt writes Nextgov's Wired Workplace blog, which delves into the issues facing employees who work in the federal information technology sector. Before joining Nextgov, Brittany covered federal pay and benefits issues as a staff correspondent for Government Executive and served as an associate editor for National Journal's Technology Daily. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Mansfield University and originally hails from Pennsylvania. She currently lives near Travis Air Force Base, Calif., where her husband is stationed.

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